Hello Everyone,So I am setting up a managed server for a client of mine. Since uptime and service is extremely important, we will be using Rackspace. However, I'm not overly familiar with the managed server world so I have a couple of questions for you:1) Is Rackspace really that good? Does anyone have any *negative* stories about them?2) Are these server specs going to be able to uphold 700,000 hits per day traffic:- Athlon 64 3200+- 1GB DDR- 2 x 73GB SCSI Raid 1 (Mirror)The reps at Rackspace tell me these specs are fine, and if anything I can always upgrade. But I don't want to have to upgrade, since we're not willing to go and put out cash right off the bat to be upgrading the site. It would seem like they are just saying that this server is fine to get us to sign up, and then once we're there we'll notice that the performance sucks and will be forced to put out extra cash for upgrades. We can't afford that.Furthermore, I decided not to get the Plesk panel through Rackspace since they charge $105/month for it while I can just got and buy a license from Plesk for a one-time fee of $200.3) Do you think Rackspace support will still help me out from time to time if I run into Plesk problems? Do such problems occur often? We will only be hosting 1 website on the server, maybe 2 later on.I think that's everything for now. Thanks for all your help!Hi,
A managed server means just that, you shouldn't need to do anything with the server apart from drop your content on - everything else should be handled by the provider.
However, you'll find most companies don't provide this service and instead provide what I call semi-managed (they look after the OS only)
My opinion on the hardware is that its quite sub-standard for 700,000 hits per day especially if you running any active content.
It all depends if you want your visitors to have a good experience or you just want a server that'll handle it. If your looking to start with 700,000 and grow to 2 or 3 million expect to upgrade the server very soon.
For a 700,000 hit site I'd sugguest a minimum of 2GB ram, dual-core Opteron and multiple scsi drives with hardware raid. I'd look into getting a server that scales well. eg drop another cpu in for a total of 4x cores, add more disks and be able to max out RAM.
JohnSo my suspicion is correct, they are simply giving me something that will "work" and then I will be forced to upgrade, and therefore pay more money?How would a solution like the one prepared by Rackspace differ from choosing a provider like Mosso.com.It would seem that in many cases, being on a shared server (or shared server system/cluster) gives more performance benefits since it has more burstable processing power overall. Mosso servers are run by Rackspace anyway, and fall under the same uptime SLA.Any comments in that direction?mosso is not going to be much different.
Its still a shared systems after all and still has X amount of performance - at least with your own server you dictate how much power you give it.
I can't see mosso allowing high traffic/demanding sites on their system as its simply not cost effective for a client to consume too much resources.
You may like to look at alternatives to rackspace, I can only speak from my clients experiencies with rackspace.co.uk, getting 2 totally different quotes when they played "dumb" for exactly the same setup.
They do have a top notch network and a good name, although that depends if its more important to have a name than the service you need.
JohnWith RackSpace you will be paying at least $400 a month for a single server BUT you get 24X7 live support and 24X7 phone support...... They also have all sorts of other guarantees in place like the "1 hour hardware replacement" etc.
Don't get me wrong i have NEVER used them but im sure if you can afford them they will be absolutely super.With RackSpace you will be paying at least $400 a month for a single server BUT you get 24X7 live support and 24X7 phone support...... They also have all sorts of other guarantees in place like the "1 hour hardware replacement" etc.Don't get me wrong i have NEVER used them but im sure if you can afford them they will be absolutely super.The original quote for the system shown above is actually $330.00. As you can see, the system is apparantley insufficient for the usage statistics that I had provided them.However, Mosso also offers 24/7 support, 100% network, and 2 hour hardware SLA. Also, the servers are in a cluster format meaning that the burstable resource access is infact greater than that of a single manged server. Doesn't it seem like just going ahead with the Mosso plan would be a better solution for my site? In many instances it seems that while Rackspace is really good, they will constantly be trying to drive the price up and make my client spend more coin which at the moment is somewhat difficult.Basically what I am comparing here is:[Athlon 64 3200, 1GB DDR, 2x73GB SCSI for $330/month] vs. [Mosso.com cluster server environment for $100/month]The site being hosted on there will recieve upwards from 700,000 hits per day eventually expading to probably no more than 2,000,000 hits per day a year down the road. Think the Mosso network can uphold that? Could the Athlon 64 server?Mosso is a venture company of RackSpace, just so you're aware - the 'network' is not a bottleneck...Mosso's http segment of the cluster was down for the vast majority of a day at one point. I think that says enough.Mosso is a venture company of RackSpace, just so you're aware - the 'network' is not a bottleneck...Mosso's http segment of the cluster was down for the vast majority of a day at one point. I think that says enough.So just because they are hosted by Rackspace doesn't mean much, right?It would seem then, that in order to upkeep a site of roughly 1,000,000 hits a day you need to dish out like $450.00/month for a decent Rackspace managed server? Otherwise, they'll just stuff you with whatever you agree to pay and then tell you that your server is overloaded and they recommend an upgrade?That sort of customer service worries me. It's like they are trying to trick you into signing a contract, and then when it's signed you have only 2 choices:A) Put up with the slow server you initially agreed to orB) Pay more money to get the kind of server you really need but they didn't tell you about before (because you wouldn't be able to pay that much).Correct?Are your pages mostly static pages with limited mysql/dynamic content? If so, that system is more than enough for that level of hits. Even with moderate dynamic usage, you should be fine. The SCSI drives will speed up I/O, and 1 GB of RAM is usually enough. The processor with 1MB L2 cache should be more than enough as well.
We have some busy sites on P4 2.0s with 512 MB of RAM and they are flying with 1 million hits a day. It really depends on how well your dynamic portion is coded, and how heavy your MySQL queries will be.
Rackspace is one of the best managed server providers around. They are more expensive, but their network and support team are tough to match when they are put together.
- John C.Are your pages mostly static pages with limited mysql/dynamic content? If so, that system is more than enough for that level of hits. Even with moderate dynamic usage, you should be fine. The SCSI drives will speed up I/O, and 1 GB of RAM is usually enough. The processor with 1MB L2 cache should be more than enough as well.We have some busy sites on P4 2.0s with 512 MB of RAM and they are flying with 1 million hits a day. It really depends on how well your dynamic portion is coded, and how heavy your MySQL queries will be.Rackspace is one of the best managed server providers around. They are more expensive, but their network and support team are tough to match when they are put together.- John C. Thanks for your response.The site is very much run off of a database. It's a real estate site (for sale by owner) so when the user hits a city, it pulls all of the information about all of the listings in that city off of a database, so roughly 700 - 1000 listings. Usually only 25 listings are shown per page, but they do have the option to show all listings at once. While there are a lot of static pages, a big majority of the site is run off of the database. The database is only about 15MB in size.What do you think?P.S. In peak periods, we sometimes get as much as 200,000 hits per hour.You need a *bigger* server/setup.
JohnThanks again for your response.How would the following solution work:AMD Opteron (2Ghz or so)1GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSI MirrorWhen I talk about hits, I don't mean unique visitors, I mean the same visitors hitting different sections of the site. I used to get confused by hits vs. vistors, so just clarifying.So back to Rackspace. You will agree then, that they most certainly had given me a lower server specification just to get me to sign up?My personal response is yes they are selling you a setup that is not sufficient for your needs.200,000 hits in an hour works out at over 50 per second, even if you get all 50 delivered to the clients within the second (not very likley) apache is gonna build up too many processes. Apache is limited to 256 connections (hard limit - you can increase this with a recompile but I would only recommend this with fully static sites) and if your going to try and use 256 apache processes on a single cpu with 1GB ram good luck, because you'll need it.Again my personal opinion is you need to be looking a a load-balanced solution for 200,000 hits an hour.Also remember you'll be looking to grow perhapd to over 500,000 hits in an hour and you'll need a setup that will cope with this.Very few hosts realise how to cope sufficiently with 500k hits in an hour.JohnRackspace quotes machines based on what they think will work for your situation. They are also open to negotiation on price/setup, so you can work with them.
I do not think you need a mega server for your site. Here is an example of a site we host that is fully dynamic.
Averaging about 40 queries per second using php and mysql, they often get 1 - 1.5 million hits (total number of files accessed) per day. They are on a P4 1.9 GHz with 768 MB of RAM and a 7200 RPM IDE drive. They have used this hardware for years, and their site holds up even under extremely focused traffic over short periods of time.
Talk with Rackspace, express your concerns, but I think you'll be fine with that hardware unless your apps are poorly coded. Maybe get Rackspace to keep the price the same but give you 2 GB RAM and little higher processor, but you may not need it.
- John C.200,000 hits in an hour works out at over 50 per second, even if you get all 50 delivered to the clients within the second (not very likley) apache is gonna build up too many processes. Apache is limited to 256 connections (hard limit - you can increase this with a recompile but I would only recommend this with fully static sites) and if your going to try and use 256 apache processes on a single cpu with 1GB ram good luck, because you'll need it.
If they really sustain 200,000 page loads per hour, then yes, they'll need a clustered approach of db and web server being separate. However, if it is 200,000 total hits per hour (including images, etc...) and only for very short periods of time, a properly tuned Apache and MySQL server can handle it. More RAM is always good, but going over the top with clusters and Quad CPU's to start with is probably not necessary.
- John C.Rackspace charge quite a lot for Plesk licensing but given how creative some people can get at 'breaking Plesk' and the trouble their team techs go through to fix the messes I think the cost may be justified.If you buy Plesk licenses externally they may, depending on the tech you get through to, help you clear a password or add some directive to a vhost but I doubt (and they shouldn't) go out of their way to help you if you are not paying for support. After all their teams of techs have to get their salary from somewhere
You mention that your site is a single db-driven real estate site. Do you really need a control panel such as Plesk?Can your platform take that sort of punishments? I am kind of scared by just 1Gb Ram but depending on how good the codebase (especially the database) is you may run quite well. It may be a good idea to start small and increase the solution as you go along. With most decent hosting companies you should be able to start with a single server and scale up to a multi server load balanced solution.Did the sales person you spoke to know exactly what he/she was talking about? Sales people in general are typically quite clueless and only driven by their targets and commissions. Try asking them whether they can conference in a technical architect.Are Rackspace good?- They have properly staffed datacentres- Their techs are really good, love hosting, and do go out of their way to help- Their network and datacentres are pretty good- I've never heard of Rackspace leaving a server down while they go and have a coffee.- They tend to be quite honest about what is going on even when they screw up.- Sales is very aggressive and can be downright annoying.Thank you everyone for your responses! This is terrific! Exactly the sort of help I needed, boy am I glad I found these forums!Alright, well to clear up a few questions that have popped up. First off, I was in a conference call with one of their tech guys as well as the sales guy since I was constantly bugging him worried that I wouldn't be getting a fast enough server. Still, I think relying on an opinion from anyone at Rackspace when I am buying their product is somewhat uncertain. I mean, of course they will tell me their product is the best and that it will work right? They just want my business! This is why I have been looking for outside sources of opinion.As for your comment on running Plesk, you're more than likely right, I probably don't need it. The only reason I was considering Plesk is because I have absolutley no clue about anything to do with Linux and can only imagine that setting up even simple things like e-mail accounts and additional FTP users, subdomains, or databases, is more of a hassle than one could imagine. Does Red Hat even come with built-in stuff like IMAP, FTP, etc.?Here is a screenshot of the website statistics from March 2006. This will give you a better idea of what sort of site usage we are looking at.<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://szymon.citemedia.ca/pics/web_stats.jpgIt's">http://szymon.citemedia.ca/pics/web_stats.jpgIt's</a><!-- m --> hard to tell how well the database is coded, I would always like to assume the worst just for security sake.Thanks again for all your help. I really hope we can figure out a good solution. Our maximum monthly budget is really $330.00 which we were already quoted, I mean, in the absolutle worst case we can stretch it to $350 but that's really as much as we're able to push it.Don't get me wrong, RackSpace run a fantastic shop, however, their sales people don't have much experience in terms of what will run on what, so yes they will be the ones telling you to sign up, and if it doesn't work - upgrade. So to put it simply, yes you're probably going to end up paying more than $330 for a solution that actually works.If that pricing is too high, you should look elsewhere, there are other managed providers around who will do just as good as job, for a lower price.The Dual Opteron spec you mentioned is more appropriate, however it's important to remember than when you're serving lots of pages the main bottleneck is RAM, not CPU. Each Apache process uses up a certain amount of RAM, and once the physical RAM runs out and you start hitting disk swap, the server loads will rocket causing a massive slowdown.HTHDanHmmm good points.So how would a solution like this work:AMD Athlon 64 3200+2GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSII have called them a couple of times now and used a different name every time. It seems that if you start of with a different attitude in the beginning you get different price quotes.I mean, I just spoke with this lady and I was being hesitant on the price from the getgo, and she quoted me a Single Opteron , 1G ram and 2x73GB scsi for $400/month.Seems like you really need to bargin with these guys. I wonder what their actually bottom-line price points are for all of this stuff. I bet if I called them and gave them my expectations for a system and a price just slightly above their margin and said if they agree I'll sign a contract on the spot, they would do it.Anyhow.... the question here is, then... RAM > Processor in my case? Or do I still need a better processor? I think I could bargain my way into getting a Athlon 3200 with 2GB and dual disks for $330/month.If anyone here has MSN and would like to chat with me further about my setup and any options that you could recommend, I would absolutley love that.My MSN is <!-- e --><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!-- e --> at your March stats, you did 9.4 million hits in the month, but your max hits per hour was once 230k. Seems a little skewed, but I guess you could have some high peaks with very low valleys. We have clients pushing 1 million hits a day on lesser specs and they're fine, but the traffic is somewhat spaced out.
More memory is almost always a good thing, as running out of memory = "bad things happen". If your cpu gets maxed (unlikely for 9 million hits a month), things slow a bit, get backlogged, but things recover. If you max your memory, the server grinds to a halt.
I cannot advise you on whether the server they quoted will work (neither can they realistically as they haven't seen your code or actual visitor conditions), but based on average usage, and assuming well written code for the database part, the machine they quoted you can handle the job, although having 2 GB of RAM would be ideal.
Per a control panel, Rackspace may have alternatives like webmin or their own control panel, so ask them how you will setup emails, etc... on this server.
Good luck.
- John C.Cool. Thanks for your feedback!Ok, so this is what we will be going for then:Athlon 3200, 2GB DDR, and 2x73GB SCSI.I'm going to try and reel them into getting me this for $330/month.I was told that they run Webmin by default and that I can get some basic help with getting familiar with it. I doubt we'd be using it a whole lot to begin with. In the worst case we'll just get our own Plesk panel I think (or is there something else you'd recommend?).Ok, now on to the next big question!Manged Backup!Ok, so we have opted out of their managed backup solution because it's quite pricey (like $50/month for 25GB weekly which we don't even need so much of). Is there any backup solution that we could get from elsewhere for a good price and fast recoverability?You're all awesome!smkied, I would just use an backup service, like bqbackup.com you can get it pretty cheap.
As for the control panel, RackSpace will setup all your domains for you if you just submit a ticket to my.rackspace.com, I wouldn't worry about management just submit a ticket for anything you need and they will take care of it.
-ScottCool, thanks for the info. Someone else had also recommended bqbackup.com.My other plan was to just use cron jobs and schedule daily full site backups to an off-site FTP server that I have (shared hosting, cheap stuff). That way restoring the data might be pretty quick since it will be FTP-FTP transfer for the gzip file and then just extraction on the manged server to get things up and running again. Though I would hope than with dual SCSI drives, I will never actually have to do that....Cool, so hopefully Webmin will be enough.I will try to finalize the hosting deal tomorrow and I'll let you guys know how it goes! Thanks again!You can try to squeeze your salesrep into throwing in an IDE disk (say, a 40Gb) to which you can export your databases or whatever else needs to be backed up. You may have more luck asking for such at the end of the month when sales drones are hard pressed to make their monthly numbers.However remember that backup is only part of a recovery solution. In the event of some bad completely wiping out your server you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.Make sure to have backups of all your stuff at your own office. This should include all the static data, databases, etc. Equally important is detailed documentation of all system configuration changes (users, email configurations, apache configurations, additional modules that had to be installed, etc). Ideally one would have up to date tried and tested instructions on how to bring the solution from bare metal to online in no time at all.Finally, if you are downloading regular snapshots of information from your hosted server bear in mind that you may be paying for every megabyte of traffic on the public interface of your server. Make sure you are not hit by any massive bandwidth usage bill.Good luckYou can try to squeeze your salesrep into throwing in an IDE disk (say, a 40Gb) to which you can export your databases or whatever else needs to be backed up. You may have more luck asking for such at the end of the month when sales drones are hard pressed to make their monthly numbers.However remember that backup is only part of a recovery solution. In the event of some bad completely wiping out your server you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.Make sure to have backups of all your stuff at your own office. This should include all the static data, databases, etc. Equally important is detailed documentation of all system configuration changes (users, email configurations, apache configurations, additional modules that had to be installed, etc). Ideally one would have up to date tried and tested instructions on how to bring the solution from bare metal to online in no time at all.Finally, if you are downloading regular snapshots of information from your hosted server bear in mind that you may be paying for every megabyte of traffic on the public interface of your server. Make sure you are not hit by any massive bandwidth usage bill.Good luckCool, lots of good points there.I had arranged for 500GB of outgoing bandwidth with Rackspace. The site uses about 150~200GB of bandwidth per month. That leaves with with another 200GB to use for whatever, so I can run my backups with that. The amount of data that will actually have to be backed up is only maybe 1~2GB. Is it not possible to make a backup of the entire hard disk, which would capture all of my settings such as e-mail and stuff as well? That way I wouldn't need to re-create all of the accounts, etc.? Or is that not an option?$105 per month for plesk??? omg that is expensive !$105 per month for plesk??? omg that is expensive !Tell me about it. Especially when you can just buy your own license for $200. In fact, I can get premium Plesk support for $550/year and still come out with $400 in my pocket.you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.
Just a note, If he is infact going to use RackSpace, they will restore the slave drive for you and make sure it's back up and running again.Just a note, If he is infact going to use RackSpace, they will restore the slave drive for you and make sure it's back up and running again.I think NightAdmin meant that I am responsible for restoring all of my files back on to the main hard drive and getting them to work properly.I will see about getting that 3rd hard drive. I will already be pushing the envelope by trying to squeeze in an extra GB of RAM within the same price point. Perhaps I'll give them a little breathing room before I try to get an extra hard drive.--------------------Here is a whole new topic..... firewall!Do I need a hardware firewall? They charge $100/month for a basic Cisco firewall. They said there is a software firewall included with Red Hat that they install, but they consider it to be unsupported and it's just there to be there.... Is it really important to be running a hardware firewall? It seems like a hell of a price for it....I think NightAdmin meant that I am responsible for restoring all of my files back on to the main hard drive and getting them to work properly.
I will see about getting that 3rd hard drive. I will already be pushing the envelope by trying to squeeze in an extra GB of RAM within the same price point. Perhaps I'll give them a little breathing room before I try to get an extra hard drive.
--------------------
Here is a whole new topic..... firewall!
Do I need a hardware firewall? They charge $100/month for a basic Cisco firewall. They said there is a software firewall included with Red Hat that they install, but they consider it to be unsupported and it's just there to be there....
Is it really important to be running a hardware firewall? It seems like a hell of a price for it....
I know what NightAdmin is talking about, I was just pointing out they will restore it from the slave to the primary and make sure it works again, atleast that's what they done for us, which is quite something.
As for your hardware firewall , I wouldn't bother too much with it unless you are expecting some ddos, easier on your budget to go without it, can't see you having too much trouble.
-ScottI know what NightAdmin is talking about, I was just pointing out they will restore it from the slave to the primary and make sure it works again, atleast that's what they done for us, which is quite something.As for your hardware firewall , I wouldn't bother too much with it unless you are expecting some ddos, easier on your budget to go without it, can't see you having too much trouble.-ScottWow cool, if they will restore the data for me then that's a pretty big bonus. I will have to see if I can get something like that. I'm not sure I can afford to pay more for the drive though (at least not right now) so we'll have to see what I can arrange.You've all been so helpful it's amazing.Wow cool, if they will restore the data for me then that's a pretty big bonus. I will have to see if I can get something like that. I'm not sure I can afford to pay more for the drive though (at least not right now) so we'll have to see what I can arrange.You've all been so helpful it's amazing. Don't be too sure that they are going to stay restoring your whole systems from what's been backed up to a secondary disk. And if you get the IDE disk for backups remember that when Rackspace will put your server online their only responsibility is to format and mount the disk for you.You will then have to create your own backup strategy and possibly speak to their support techs for some assistance wherever you get stuck.I heard a lot of horror stories where clients got a 2nd disk for 'backup purposes' and never had anything set up to do backups of sorts. Don't be too sure that they are going to stay restoring your whole systems from what's been backed up to a secondary disk. And if you get the IDE disk for backups remember that when Rackspace will put your server online their only responsibility is to format and mount the disk for you.You will then have to create your own backup strategy and possibly speak to their support techs for some assistance wherever you get stuck.I heard a lot of horror stories where clients got a 2nd disk for 'backup purposes' and never had anything set up to do backups of sorts.Cron jobs should do the trick?smkied, I would just use an backup service, like bqbackup.com you can get it pretty cheap.
As for the control panel, RackSpace will setup all your domains for you if you just submit a ticket to my.rackspace.com, I wouldn't worry about management just submit a ticket for anything you need and they will take care of it.
-Scott
Scott, at $2.70/GB of bandwidth (list price), that could add up quick.Scott, at $2.70/GB of bandwidth (list price), that could add up quick.I have 700GB of bandwidth, of which I will probably only use roughly 200GB of for now.I have 700GB of bandwidth, of which I will probably only use roughly 200GB of for now.
Sorry - I just read that after I responded. *doh*.Well, after lots of "wheeling and dealing" I was able to get this:Athlon 64 3200+2GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSI Raid 1Additional 80GB IDE Drive700GB BandwidthNo Plesk.No Backup.$252/month with a 36-month contract.Thoughts?36-month contract.
Not a bad deal - but, I'd never sign a 3 year contract for anything hosting related. It's just too volatile an industry.Not a bad deal - but, I'd never sign a 3 year contract for anything hosting related. It's just too volatile an industry.This is Rackspace though. I mean... the best of the best right? Why would they ever go under?This is Rackspace though. I mean... the best of the best right? Why would they ever go under?
Yes, but that would also mean you'd be stuck with the same server for the whole 3 years (I think). Most companies do a technology refresh every 12-18 months. So when your contract is up, you'll have missed 3 years worth of new technology on that server.
Also, Rackspace being the best of the best - that's debateable. I'm reminded of a quote by SoftWareRevue here: "There's no best host, only the host that is best for you.". Take my previous comment with that spirit in mind.Rackspace probably wont go under, but its only a matter of time before people realise all thats needed is to offer QUALITY and RELIABILITY and DEPENDABILITY etc at a affordable price. Combine that with decent techs, and you will have a winner. Free reboots, free tweaking, hardare fixing (parts at cost etc) and you will have a happy customer.When a firm does that, rackspace will be in trouble.I really dont get colo and dedicated firms, been looking at colo recently and its always extra this, and extra that, for stuff that I would give as part of the service If I had the money to run a datacenter.People want it, and at the moment, they have to pay through the nose for it. Eventually market forces will change that, and more features will come as standard, and the quality firms will be cheaper.Quality and reliability costs money.With the current massive price increases at redbus and the industry in general in our opinion its not worth doing colo anymore. Redbus used to charge £350/month for a full rack with 8amps powerNow its £790 with 8 amps and you can't get any additional power without buying further racks. With a decent server running 0.8 amps that means your costs for colo'ing 1 server is £80 per month excluding bandwidth and remote-reboot switches - and that's if your running at capacity.With costs going up nearly 300% thats exactly why we don't offer colocation anymore, in fact we don't offer unmanaged servers anymore - its simply not in our interests.Hosting in the UK has just got ALOT more expensive and will continue to get more expensive for the forseable future. Already some big names have gone out of business because they simple cannot adapt to these new prices.As with all things in life you get what you pay for.JohnIn Germany I saw excelent prices. Unfortunally I don't know who are the best, but still they are verry low. So, who is the best hosting in Germany/France/Holland whit the same support and network quality?Rackspace has some very positive reviews on here. Use the search tool to jusitfy your choice.(disclaimer: my company offers colocation, but I also do syadmin work for customers that use a specific web application server that I am expert at setting up)My experience with RS stems from a customer that felt he needed very high burst bandwidth availability, and proceeded to get a Cisco firewall, 2 Opteron servers and a certain amount of transfer from them. The time period was from about October or November 2005 thru to now, he is still a customerGood points:a) they have a decent trouble-ticketing systemb) they have Cisco guys and Linux guys on-staff c) they have monitoring in placed) you can call them upBad pointsa) bad HW: one of the Opteron servers kept rebooting under load. It would work fine until we unzipped some multi-GB files. It took RS a few days to get in the parts to replace it, and obviously, they did not do heavy-duty testing of the system before it went into production - I feel like 15 minutes with memtest86 would have caught itb) bad HW: a drive failed, became read-only somehow, they rebooted, fsck'ed it and said it needed to be replaced, of course. problem: they wanted to charge extra to image or transfer all the data from the old drive to the new drive. My take: they should do it for free, it is part of hardware maintenance - they wanted to leave it mounted as the secondary and then we were to move it over; alternatively, they could have offered to back it all up for us to the network backup, but they didn't.c) lock-in pricing practices: they want to charge A LOT of money when you want to upgrade some hardware. They figure it is easier for you to spend more, than to change all your IPs and switch to some other providerd) revenue enhancement: they want to sell you other services and push you to buy them. Any problem other than a basic one, is an excuse for them to suggest either a hardware upgrade or something else they will sell you.e) if it ain't LAMP (linux/apache/mysql/php), the techs will not have much of a clue. Part of the service I set up involved a different web server running on port 80 (needed for the web app server I mention), not Apache. The tech wasn't paying attention and reset things to use Apache.These are all just my opinions, your mileage may vary , etc.I've been with RS for a month. They have been super. I had to have a level 3 tech on the line for about an hour to troubleshoot a SpamAssassin upgrade problem. Because I bought Plesk through them I have all the control panel support and server support. Yes, they are expensive but in the hosting world you get what you pay for. Don't cheap out on your client. A dedicated or shared environment from another provider may be cheaper but may not be as good. If hosting and server management is not core to your day to day- let someone reputable do it for you. Just my 2.
A managed server means just that, you shouldn't need to do anything with the server apart from drop your content on - everything else should be handled by the provider.
However, you'll find most companies don't provide this service and instead provide what I call semi-managed (they look after the OS only)
My opinion on the hardware is that its quite sub-standard for 700,000 hits per day especially if you running any active content.
It all depends if you want your visitors to have a good experience or you just want a server that'll handle it. If your looking to start with 700,000 and grow to 2 or 3 million expect to upgrade the server very soon.
For a 700,000 hit site I'd sugguest a minimum of 2GB ram, dual-core Opteron and multiple scsi drives with hardware raid. I'd look into getting a server that scales well. eg drop another cpu in for a total of 4x cores, add more disks and be able to max out RAM.
JohnSo my suspicion is correct, they are simply giving me something that will "work" and then I will be forced to upgrade, and therefore pay more money?How would a solution like the one prepared by Rackspace differ from choosing a provider like Mosso.com.It would seem that in many cases, being on a shared server (or shared server system/cluster) gives more performance benefits since it has more burstable processing power overall. Mosso servers are run by Rackspace anyway, and fall under the same uptime SLA.Any comments in that direction?mosso is not going to be much different.
Its still a shared systems after all and still has X amount of performance - at least with your own server you dictate how much power you give it.
I can't see mosso allowing high traffic/demanding sites on their system as its simply not cost effective for a client to consume too much resources.
You may like to look at alternatives to rackspace, I can only speak from my clients experiencies with rackspace.co.uk, getting 2 totally different quotes when they played "dumb" for exactly the same setup.
They do have a top notch network and a good name, although that depends if its more important to have a name than the service you need.
JohnWith RackSpace you will be paying at least $400 a month for a single server BUT you get 24X7 live support and 24X7 phone support...... They also have all sorts of other guarantees in place like the "1 hour hardware replacement" etc.
Don't get me wrong i have NEVER used them but im sure if you can afford them they will be absolutely super.With RackSpace you will be paying at least $400 a month for a single server BUT you get 24X7 live support and 24X7 phone support...... They also have all sorts of other guarantees in place like the "1 hour hardware replacement" etc.Don't get me wrong i have NEVER used them but im sure if you can afford them they will be absolutely super.The original quote for the system shown above is actually $330.00. As you can see, the system is apparantley insufficient for the usage statistics that I had provided them.However, Mosso also offers 24/7 support, 100% network, and 2 hour hardware SLA. Also, the servers are in a cluster format meaning that the burstable resource access is infact greater than that of a single manged server. Doesn't it seem like just going ahead with the Mosso plan would be a better solution for my site? In many instances it seems that while Rackspace is really good, they will constantly be trying to drive the price up and make my client spend more coin which at the moment is somewhat difficult.Basically what I am comparing here is:[Athlon 64 3200, 1GB DDR, 2x73GB SCSI for $330/month] vs. [Mosso.com cluster server environment for $100/month]The site being hosted on there will recieve upwards from 700,000 hits per day eventually expading to probably no more than 2,000,000 hits per day a year down the road. Think the Mosso network can uphold that? Could the Athlon 64 server?Mosso is a venture company of RackSpace, just so you're aware - the 'network' is not a bottleneck...Mosso's http segment of the cluster was down for the vast majority of a day at one point. I think that says enough.Mosso is a venture company of RackSpace, just so you're aware - the 'network' is not a bottleneck...Mosso's http segment of the cluster was down for the vast majority of a day at one point. I think that says enough.So just because they are hosted by Rackspace doesn't mean much, right?It would seem then, that in order to upkeep a site of roughly 1,000,000 hits a day you need to dish out like $450.00/month for a decent Rackspace managed server? Otherwise, they'll just stuff you with whatever you agree to pay and then tell you that your server is overloaded and they recommend an upgrade?That sort of customer service worries me. It's like they are trying to trick you into signing a contract, and then when it's signed you have only 2 choices:A) Put up with the slow server you initially agreed to orB) Pay more money to get the kind of server you really need but they didn't tell you about before (because you wouldn't be able to pay that much).Correct?Are your pages mostly static pages with limited mysql/dynamic content? If so, that system is more than enough for that level of hits. Even with moderate dynamic usage, you should be fine. The SCSI drives will speed up I/O, and 1 GB of RAM is usually enough. The processor with 1MB L2 cache should be more than enough as well.
We have some busy sites on P4 2.0s with 512 MB of RAM and they are flying with 1 million hits a day. It really depends on how well your dynamic portion is coded, and how heavy your MySQL queries will be.
Rackspace is one of the best managed server providers around. They are more expensive, but their network and support team are tough to match when they are put together.
- John C.Are your pages mostly static pages with limited mysql/dynamic content? If so, that system is more than enough for that level of hits. Even with moderate dynamic usage, you should be fine. The SCSI drives will speed up I/O, and 1 GB of RAM is usually enough. The processor with 1MB L2 cache should be more than enough as well.We have some busy sites on P4 2.0s with 512 MB of RAM and they are flying with 1 million hits a day. It really depends on how well your dynamic portion is coded, and how heavy your MySQL queries will be.Rackspace is one of the best managed server providers around. They are more expensive, but their network and support team are tough to match when they are put together.- John C. Thanks for your response.The site is very much run off of a database. It's a real estate site (for sale by owner) so when the user hits a city, it pulls all of the information about all of the listings in that city off of a database, so roughly 700 - 1000 listings. Usually only 25 listings are shown per page, but they do have the option to show all listings at once. While there are a lot of static pages, a big majority of the site is run off of the database. The database is only about 15MB in size.What do you think?P.S. In peak periods, we sometimes get as much as 200,000 hits per hour.You need a *bigger* server/setup.
JohnThanks again for your response.How would the following solution work:AMD Opteron (2Ghz or so)1GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSI MirrorWhen I talk about hits, I don't mean unique visitors, I mean the same visitors hitting different sections of the site. I used to get confused by hits vs. vistors, so just clarifying.So back to Rackspace. You will agree then, that they most certainly had given me a lower server specification just to get me to sign up?My personal response is yes they are selling you a setup that is not sufficient for your needs.200,000 hits in an hour works out at over 50 per second, even if you get all 50 delivered to the clients within the second (not very likley) apache is gonna build up too many processes. Apache is limited to 256 connections (hard limit - you can increase this with a recompile but I would only recommend this with fully static sites) and if your going to try and use 256 apache processes on a single cpu with 1GB ram good luck, because you'll need it.Again my personal opinion is you need to be looking a a load-balanced solution for 200,000 hits an hour.Also remember you'll be looking to grow perhapd to over 500,000 hits in an hour and you'll need a setup that will cope with this.Very few hosts realise how to cope sufficiently with 500k hits in an hour.JohnRackspace quotes machines based on what they think will work for your situation. They are also open to negotiation on price/setup, so you can work with them.
I do not think you need a mega server for your site. Here is an example of a site we host that is fully dynamic.
Averaging about 40 queries per second using php and mysql, they often get 1 - 1.5 million hits (total number of files accessed) per day. They are on a P4 1.9 GHz with 768 MB of RAM and a 7200 RPM IDE drive. They have used this hardware for years, and their site holds up even under extremely focused traffic over short periods of time.
Talk with Rackspace, express your concerns, but I think you'll be fine with that hardware unless your apps are poorly coded. Maybe get Rackspace to keep the price the same but give you 2 GB RAM and little higher processor, but you may not need it.
- John C.200,000 hits in an hour works out at over 50 per second, even if you get all 50 delivered to the clients within the second (not very likley) apache is gonna build up too many processes. Apache is limited to 256 connections (hard limit - you can increase this with a recompile but I would only recommend this with fully static sites) and if your going to try and use 256 apache processes on a single cpu with 1GB ram good luck, because you'll need it.
If they really sustain 200,000 page loads per hour, then yes, they'll need a clustered approach of db and web server being separate. However, if it is 200,000 total hits per hour (including images, etc...) and only for very short periods of time, a properly tuned Apache and MySQL server can handle it. More RAM is always good, but going over the top with clusters and Quad CPU's to start with is probably not necessary.
- John C.Rackspace charge quite a lot for Plesk licensing but given how creative some people can get at 'breaking Plesk' and the trouble their team techs go through to fix the messes I think the cost may be justified.If you buy Plesk licenses externally they may, depending on the tech you get through to, help you clear a password or add some directive to a vhost but I doubt (and they shouldn't) go out of their way to help you if you are not paying for support. After all their teams of techs have to get their salary from somewhere
You mention that your site is a single db-driven real estate site. Do you really need a control panel such as Plesk?Can your platform take that sort of punishments? I am kind of scared by just 1Gb Ram but depending on how good the codebase (especially the database) is you may run quite well. It may be a good idea to start small and increase the solution as you go along. With most decent hosting companies you should be able to start with a single server and scale up to a multi server load balanced solution.Did the sales person you spoke to know exactly what he/she was talking about? Sales people in general are typically quite clueless and only driven by their targets and commissions. Try asking them whether they can conference in a technical architect.Are Rackspace good?- They have properly staffed datacentres- Their techs are really good, love hosting, and do go out of their way to help- Their network and datacentres are pretty good- I've never heard of Rackspace leaving a server down while they go and have a coffee.- They tend to be quite honest about what is going on even when they screw up.- Sales is very aggressive and can be downright annoying.Thank you everyone for your responses! This is terrific! Exactly the sort of help I needed, boy am I glad I found these forums!Alright, well to clear up a few questions that have popped up. First off, I was in a conference call with one of their tech guys as well as the sales guy since I was constantly bugging him worried that I wouldn't be getting a fast enough server. Still, I think relying on an opinion from anyone at Rackspace when I am buying their product is somewhat uncertain. I mean, of course they will tell me their product is the best and that it will work right? They just want my business! This is why I have been looking for outside sources of opinion.As for your comment on running Plesk, you're more than likely right, I probably don't need it. The only reason I was considering Plesk is because I have absolutley no clue about anything to do with Linux and can only imagine that setting up even simple things like e-mail accounts and additional FTP users, subdomains, or databases, is more of a hassle than one could imagine. Does Red Hat even come with built-in stuff like IMAP, FTP, etc.?Here is a screenshot of the website statistics from March 2006. This will give you a better idea of what sort of site usage we are looking at.<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://szymon.citemedia.ca/pics/web_stats.jpgIt's">http://szymon.citemedia.ca/pics/web_stats.jpgIt's</a><!-- m --> hard to tell how well the database is coded, I would always like to assume the worst just for security sake.Thanks again for all your help. I really hope we can figure out a good solution. Our maximum monthly budget is really $330.00 which we were already quoted, I mean, in the absolutle worst case we can stretch it to $350 but that's really as much as we're able to push it.Don't get me wrong, RackSpace run a fantastic shop, however, their sales people don't have much experience in terms of what will run on what, so yes they will be the ones telling you to sign up, and if it doesn't work - upgrade. So to put it simply, yes you're probably going to end up paying more than $330 for a solution that actually works.If that pricing is too high, you should look elsewhere, there are other managed providers around who will do just as good as job, for a lower price.The Dual Opteron spec you mentioned is more appropriate, however it's important to remember than when you're serving lots of pages the main bottleneck is RAM, not CPU. Each Apache process uses up a certain amount of RAM, and once the physical RAM runs out and you start hitting disk swap, the server loads will rocket causing a massive slowdown.HTHDanHmmm good points.So how would a solution like this work:AMD Athlon 64 3200+2GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSII have called them a couple of times now and used a different name every time. It seems that if you start of with a different attitude in the beginning you get different price quotes.I mean, I just spoke with this lady and I was being hesitant on the price from the getgo, and she quoted me a Single Opteron , 1G ram and 2x73GB scsi for $400/month.Seems like you really need to bargin with these guys. I wonder what their actually bottom-line price points are for all of this stuff. I bet if I called them and gave them my expectations for a system and a price just slightly above their margin and said if they agree I'll sign a contract on the spot, they would do it.Anyhow.... the question here is, then... RAM > Processor in my case? Or do I still need a better processor? I think I could bargain my way into getting a Athlon 3200 with 2GB and dual disks for $330/month.If anyone here has MSN and would like to chat with me further about my setup and any options that you could recommend, I would absolutley love that.My MSN is <!-- e --><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!-- e --> at your March stats, you did 9.4 million hits in the month, but your max hits per hour was once 230k. Seems a little skewed, but I guess you could have some high peaks with very low valleys. We have clients pushing 1 million hits a day on lesser specs and they're fine, but the traffic is somewhat spaced out.More memory is almost always a good thing, as running out of memory = "bad things happen". If your cpu gets maxed (unlikely for 9 million hits a month), things slow a bit, get backlogged, but things recover. If you max your memory, the server grinds to a halt.
I cannot advise you on whether the server they quoted will work (neither can they realistically as they haven't seen your code or actual visitor conditions), but based on average usage, and assuming well written code for the database part, the machine they quoted you can handle the job, although having 2 GB of RAM would be ideal.
Per a control panel, Rackspace may have alternatives like webmin or their own control panel, so ask them how you will setup emails, etc... on this server.
Good luck.
- John C.Cool. Thanks for your feedback!Ok, so this is what we will be going for then:Athlon 3200, 2GB DDR, and 2x73GB SCSI.I'm going to try and reel them into getting me this for $330/month.I was told that they run Webmin by default and that I can get some basic help with getting familiar with it. I doubt we'd be using it a whole lot to begin with. In the worst case we'll just get our own Plesk panel I think (or is there something else you'd recommend?).Ok, now on to the next big question!Manged Backup!Ok, so we have opted out of their managed backup solution because it's quite pricey (like $50/month for 25GB weekly which we don't even need so much of). Is there any backup solution that we could get from elsewhere for a good price and fast recoverability?You're all awesome!smkied, I would just use an backup service, like bqbackup.com you can get it pretty cheap.
As for the control panel, RackSpace will setup all your domains for you if you just submit a ticket to my.rackspace.com, I wouldn't worry about management just submit a ticket for anything you need and they will take care of it.
-ScottCool, thanks for the info. Someone else had also recommended bqbackup.com.My other plan was to just use cron jobs and schedule daily full site backups to an off-site FTP server that I have (shared hosting, cheap stuff). That way restoring the data might be pretty quick since it will be FTP-FTP transfer for the gzip file and then just extraction on the manged server to get things up and running again. Though I would hope than with dual SCSI drives, I will never actually have to do that....
Cool, so hopefully Webmin will be enough.I will try to finalize the hosting deal tomorrow and I'll let you guys know how it goes! Thanks again!You can try to squeeze your salesrep into throwing in an IDE disk (say, a 40Gb) to which you can export your databases or whatever else needs to be backed up. You may have more luck asking for such at the end of the month when sales drones are hard pressed to make their monthly numbers.However remember that backup is only part of a recovery solution. In the event of some bad completely wiping out your server you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.Make sure to have backups of all your stuff at your own office. This should include all the static data, databases, etc. Equally important is detailed documentation of all system configuration changes (users, email configurations, apache configurations, additional modules that had to be installed, etc). Ideally one would have up to date tried and tested instructions on how to bring the solution from bare metal to online in no time at all.Finally, if you are downloading regular snapshots of information from your hosted server bear in mind that you may be paying for every megabyte of traffic on the public interface of your server. Make sure you are not hit by any massive bandwidth usage bill.Good luckYou can try to squeeze your salesrep into throwing in an IDE disk (say, a 40Gb) to which you can export your databases or whatever else needs to be backed up. You may have more luck asking for such at the end of the month when sales drones are hard pressed to make their monthly numbers.However remember that backup is only part of a recovery solution. In the event of some bad completely wiping out your server you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.Make sure to have backups of all your stuff at your own office. This should include all the static data, databases, etc. Equally important is detailed documentation of all system configuration changes (users, email configurations, apache configurations, additional modules that had to be installed, etc). Ideally one would have up to date tried and tested instructions on how to bring the solution from bare metal to online in no time at all.Finally, if you are downloading regular snapshots of information from your hosted server bear in mind that you may be paying for every megabyte of traffic on the public interface of your server. Make sure you are not hit by any massive bandwidth usage bill.Good luckCool, lots of good points there.I had arranged for 500GB of outgoing bandwidth with Rackspace. The site uses about 150~200GB of bandwidth per month. That leaves with with another 200GB to use for whatever, so I can run my backups with that. The amount of data that will actually have to be backed up is only maybe 1~2GB. Is it not possible to make a backup of the entire hard disk, which would capture all of my settings such as e-mail and stuff as well? That way I wouldn't need to re-create all of the accounts, etc.? Or is that not an option?$105 per month for plesk??? omg that is expensive !$105 per month for plesk??? omg that is expensive !Tell me about it. Especially when you can just buy your own license for $200. In fact, I can get premium Plesk support for $550/year and still come out with $400 in my pocket.you cannot expect your hosting provider to do much more than re-install the operating system. You are the one ultimately responsible for bringing your solution back online.Just a note, If he is infact going to use RackSpace, they will restore the slave drive for you and make sure it's back up and running again.Just a note, If he is infact going to use RackSpace, they will restore the slave drive for you and make sure it's back up and running again.I think NightAdmin meant that I am responsible for restoring all of my files back on to the main hard drive and getting them to work properly.I will see about getting that 3rd hard drive. I will already be pushing the envelope by trying to squeeze in an extra GB of RAM within the same price point. Perhaps I'll give them a little breathing room before I try to get an extra hard drive.--------------------Here is a whole new topic..... firewall!Do I need a hardware firewall? They charge $100/month for a basic Cisco firewall. They said there is a software firewall included with Red Hat that they install, but they consider it to be unsupported and it's just there to be there.... Is it really important to be running a hardware firewall? It seems like a hell of a price for it....I think NightAdmin meant that I am responsible for restoring all of my files back on to the main hard drive and getting them to work properly.
I will see about getting that 3rd hard drive. I will already be pushing the envelope by trying to squeeze in an extra GB of RAM within the same price point. Perhaps I'll give them a little breathing room before I try to get an extra hard drive.
--------------------
Here is a whole new topic..... firewall!
Do I need a hardware firewall? They charge $100/month for a basic Cisco firewall. They said there is a software firewall included with Red Hat that they install, but they consider it to be unsupported and it's just there to be there....
Is it really important to be running a hardware firewall? It seems like a hell of a price for it....
I know what NightAdmin is talking about, I was just pointing out they will restore it from the slave to the primary and make sure it works again, atleast that's what they done for us, which is quite something.
As for your hardware firewall , I wouldn't bother too much with it unless you are expecting some ddos, easier on your budget to go without it, can't see you having too much trouble.
-ScottI know what NightAdmin is talking about, I was just pointing out they will restore it from the slave to the primary and make sure it works again, atleast that's what they done for us, which is quite something.As for your hardware firewall , I wouldn't bother too much with it unless you are expecting some ddos, easier on your budget to go without it, can't see you having too much trouble.-ScottWow cool, if they will restore the data for me then that's a pretty big bonus. I will have to see if I can get something like that. I'm not sure I can afford to pay more for the drive though (at least not right now) so we'll have to see what I can arrange.You've all been so helpful it's amazing.Wow cool, if they will restore the data for me then that's a pretty big bonus. I will have to see if I can get something like that. I'm not sure I can afford to pay more for the drive though (at least not right now) so we'll have to see what I can arrange.You've all been so helpful it's amazing.
Don't be too sure that they are going to stay restoring your whole systems from what's been backed up to a secondary disk. And if you get the IDE disk for backups remember that when Rackspace will put your server online their only responsibility is to format and mount the disk for you.You will then have to create your own backup strategy and possibly speak to their support techs for some assistance wherever you get stuck.I heard a lot of horror stories where clients got a 2nd disk for 'backup purposes' and never had anything set up to do backups of sorts. Don't be too sure that they are going to stay restoring your whole systems from what's been backed up to a secondary disk. And if you get the IDE disk for backups remember that when Rackspace will put your server online their only responsibility is to format and mount the disk for you.You will then have to create your own backup strategy and possibly speak to their support techs for some assistance wherever you get stuck.I heard a lot of horror stories where clients got a 2nd disk for 'backup purposes' and never had anything set up to do backups of sorts.Cron jobs should do the trick?smkied, I would just use an backup service, like bqbackup.com you can get it pretty cheap.As for the control panel, RackSpace will setup all your domains for you if you just submit a ticket to my.rackspace.com, I wouldn't worry about management just submit a ticket for anything you need and they will take care of it.
-Scott
Scott, at $2.70/GB of bandwidth (list price), that could add up quick.Scott, at $2.70/GB of bandwidth (list price), that could add up quick.I have 700GB of bandwidth, of which I will probably only use roughly 200GB of for now.I have 700GB of bandwidth, of which I will probably only use roughly 200GB of for now.
Sorry - I just read that after I responded. *doh*.Well, after lots of "wheeling and dealing" I was able to get this:Athlon 64 3200+2GB DDR2 x 73GB SCSI Raid 1Additional 80GB IDE Drive700GB BandwidthNo Plesk.No Backup.$252/month with a 36-month contract.Thoughts?36-month contract.
Not a bad deal - but, I'd never sign a 3 year contract for anything hosting related. It's just too volatile an industry.Not a bad deal - but, I'd never sign a 3 year contract for anything hosting related. It's just too volatile an industry.This is Rackspace though. I mean... the best of the best right? Why would they ever go under?This is Rackspace though. I mean... the best of the best right? Why would they ever go under?
Yes, but that would also mean you'd be stuck with the same server for the whole 3 years (I think). Most companies do a technology refresh every 12-18 months. So when your contract is up, you'll have missed 3 years worth of new technology on that server.
Also, Rackspace being the best of the best - that's debateable. I'm reminded of a quote by SoftWareRevue here: "There's no best host, only the host that is best for you.". Take my previous comment with that spirit in mind
.Rackspace probably wont go under, but its only a matter of time before people realise all thats needed is to offer QUALITY and RELIABILITY and DEPENDABILITY etc at a affordable price. Combine that with decent techs, and you will have a winner. Free reboots, free tweaking, hardare fixing (parts at cost etc) and you will have a happy customer.When a firm does that, rackspace will be in trouble.I really dont get colo and dedicated firms, been looking at colo recently and its always extra this, and extra that, for stuff that I would give as part of the service If I had the money to run a datacenter.People want it, and at the moment, they have to pay through the nose for it. Eventually market forces will change that, and more features will come as standard, and the quality firms will be cheaper.Quality and reliability costs money.With the current massive price increases at redbus and the industry in general in our opinion its not worth doing colo anymore. Redbus used to charge £350/month for a full rack with 8amps powerNow its £790 with 8 amps and you can't get any additional power without buying further racks. With a decent server running 0.8 amps that means your costs for colo'ing 1 server is £80 per month excluding bandwidth and remote-reboot switches - and that's if your running at capacity.With costs going up nearly 300% thats exactly why we don't offer colocation anymore, in fact we don't offer unmanaged servers anymore - its simply not in our interests.Hosting in the UK has just got ALOT more expensive and will continue to get more expensive for the forseable future. Already some big names have gone out of business because they simple cannot adapt to these new prices.As with all things in life you get what you pay for.JohnIn Germany I saw excelent prices. Unfortunally I don't know who are the best, but still they are verry low. So, who is the best hosting in Germany/France/Holland whit the same support and network quality?Rackspace has some very positive reviews on here. Use the search tool to jusitfy your choice.(disclaimer: my company offers colocation, but I also do syadmin work for customers that use a specific web application server that I am expert at setting up)My experience with RS stems from a customer that felt he needed very high burst bandwidth availability, and proceeded to get a Cisco firewall, 2 Opteron servers and a certain amount of transfer from them. The time period was from about October or November 2005 thru to now, he is still a customerGood points:a) they have a decent trouble-ticketing systemb) they have Cisco guys and Linux guys on-staff c) they have monitoring in placed) you can call them upBad pointsa) bad HW: one of the Opteron servers kept rebooting under load. It would work fine until we unzipped some multi-GB files. It took RS a few days to get in the parts to replace it, and obviously, they did not do heavy-duty testing of the system before it went into production - I feel like 15 minutes with memtest86 would have caught itb) bad HW: a drive failed, became read-only somehow, they rebooted, fsck'ed it and said it needed to be replaced, of course. problem: they wanted to charge extra to image or transfer all the data from the old drive to the new drive. My take: they should do it for free, it is part of hardware maintenance - they wanted to leave it mounted as the secondary and then we were to move it over; alternatively, they could have offered to back it all up for us to the network backup, but they didn't.c) lock-in pricing practices: they want to charge A LOT of money when you want to upgrade some hardware. They figure it is easier for you to spend more, than to change all your IPs and switch to some other providerd) revenue enhancement: they want to sell you other services and push you to buy them. Any problem other than a basic one, is an excuse for them to suggest either a hardware upgrade or something else they will sell you.e) if it ain't LAMP (linux/apache/mysql/php), the techs will not have much of a clue. Part of the service I set up involved a different web server running on port 80 (needed for the web app server I mention), not Apache. The tech wasn't paying attention and reset things to use Apache.These are all just my opinions, your mileage may vary , etc.I've been with RS for a month. They have been super. I had to have a level 3 tech on the line for about an hour to troubleshoot a SpamAssassin upgrade problem. Because I bought Plesk through them I have all the control panel support and server support. Yes, they are expensive but in the hosting world you get what you pay for. Don't cheap out on your client. A dedicated or shared environment from another provider may be cheaper but may not be as good. If hosting and server management is not core to your day to day- let someone reputable do it for you. Just my 2.